Night time Perch action 7/2

[hambone]

Hit the water about 9:45pm Thursday night after all the crazies had gone in, looking for some Perch fillets to fill my freezer and my belly!! Thought we would go around and check some dock lights out. Just so happened the first dock light that we hit was absolutely loaded with Perch!!!! And I mean loaded with jumbo size, foot long sandwich making Perch. I was like a kid in a candy store. First cast hooked up!!!!! Caught probably 15-20 as fast as we could throw in. Then they just quit biting, I threw everything I could think of after that and managed to catch maybe 5 more. Also in the mix we caught 8 small stripers, all about 12” long. Had two citation Perch, one 13” and another 14.5”. All the Perch was released into my live well for a trip to Crisco lake , lol!! Stripers went back unharmed. After Perch action was over decided to plug a point for a little while, caught 3 nice green fish on a thunder stick.

[johnr]

Awesome!! We fished for them during the day and skunked. I thought we were on em a few times but couldn’t get them to eat.

[hambone]

Yeah man well I learned something that night. Like I said the light was loaded with perch, I mean it looked like thousands of them but realistically It probably was a more like a hundred. I threw night crawlers on a hook with no sinker and they wore it out for first 15 minutes then they just quit. They didn’t leave they was still swarming the light, but just quit hitting the night crawlers. I could see they was still feeding though, I couldn’t figure out what the heck they was eating, didn’t see any shad or minnows and they wasn’t really hitting top of water after bugs. I have been pondering on this ever since and finally it hit me this morning, they was eating mayflies!! They were eating the mayfly nymphs to be more accurate. The nymphs swim to surface of water from bottom of lake and they are attracted to light. So now I just need to find some sort of lure or bait that resembles this mayfly nymph, I think I’ll be in the money then

[johnr]

Yep that’s their favorite food I think. Some of the areas I fish will have mayfly nymph skeletons floating everywhere and it’s a good sign the perch will be in there. When they’re on a mayfly feed, it can be real tough to get a bite going.

I have used mayfly nymph flies in the dropshot and they won’t eat it. I think they’re really into taste and smell and it can be a deal breaker with them.

I think gulp makes some small buggy trout bait. Maybe they’ve got something.

[31Airborne]

wow - you had a blue ribbon day. caught a little bit of everything. nice perch - congrats on the citations!